


Evil is here, volatile as smoke

by Cinnamaldeide



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sweeney Todd, Beta Read, Gifset by PrincessChiyoh, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multiple times, Victorian London setting, lightscameramurder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 07:17:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13476447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamaldeide/pseuds/Cinnamaldeide
Summary: Something not very nice happened in the room over Hannibal’s meat pie shop, many years ago, but a purposeful stranger is eager to rent it nonetheless; fortuitously Hannibal had his ways to feed another mouth.Written for Hannibal Cre-Ate-Ive’s #LightsCameraMurder, inspired bySweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street(2007)





	Evil is here, volatile as smoke

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to @ustenance (on Twitter) for correcting my unrefined work again and again, and to @princesschiyoh (on Tumblr) for having produced [an amazing gifset](https://cinnamaldeide.tumblr.com/post/170109003884/) I could include in my own reblog on Tumblr :) the both of them have been incredibly kind to me, supporting my work even without having seen the movie this fanfiction is based on; in case you yourself weren’t familiar with the original plot, I provided a short, hopefully clear summary in the notes at the end :)

 

 _Demons’ll charm you with a smile for a while,_  
_but in time…_  
— Tobias “Toby” Ragg, Sweeney Todd

 

Glimpsing an unimposing, disheveled figure on the other side of the dirt road, Hannibal witnessed an imperious strength in his pensive, unbending stare at the upper quarters. Only one particular unfortunate man could stare at those ample windows with such intense longing, aware of its disgraceful history, and stand the sight.

Fleet Street deliberately forgot the infamous vicissitudes that happened under its roof, but rumor had it tragic events befell its previous occupants, and Hannibal candidly admitted to himself the macabre tales of the supposedly haunted place had weighted favourably towards its purchase, as he engaged in his search for adequate accommodations to start his business.

As his approaching visitor crossed the threshold of his tastefully furnished meat pie emporium, which had been once upon a time an established and respectable barber shop, Hannibal recalled his fragmentary knowledge of a foolish barber and his wife; a proper artist with his knife, as they said, and he was _beautiful_.

Hannibal knew what they meant, after extending the chased silver handles of one of the razors for him to brandish with covetous, trembling hands; it could be argued that the glistening blade felt like a natural extension of his arm.

 

In what turned out to be a successful attempt at introducing Mr. Graham, as he insisted on being called, and his sublime abilities into their neighborhoods, Hannibal couldn’t help noticing his refreshingly impulsive temperament; Will’s eager hand itched to slit certain throats, heedless of the consequences.

When Miss Lounds knocked at their door the following afternoon, rightly sniffing his deceivement out and consequently breeding grounds for blackmail, Hannibal meekly offered her supple neck to placate Will’s thirst for blood. His uninhibited inclinations were charming, but Hannibal considered personally guiding his sharp, reckless blade towards a more painstaking reckoning.

 

“Tell me, how did you kill her?” Hannibal asked, instead of feigning astonishment.

“With my hands,” Will answered, unable to take his eyes off of the stained trunk containing Freddie’s corpse. “It felt _righteous_.”

 

Glimpses of Will’s beloved daughter’s sweet face, contrary to his mourned wife’s, were often possible from the street in front of Jack Crawford’s mansion, where the local police chief legally segregated her under his close surveillance.

On the pretest of offering her shelter and a roof over her head, since she was left with no family, Jack adopted her, preventing her from wandering his streets, for her own security and that of his own citizens.

Hannibal had occasionally dined in her company; an endearing creature, daringly prone to manipulativeness, but not quite refinedly so. Abigail deluded more than one young man into believing her flatteries, rather than suspect he’d been involved in an elaborate plan to grant her more chances to flee from her golden prison.

Abigail had her father’s perceptive blue eyes, yet unexpectedly different facial features; Hannibal supposed her mother’s. Hannibal wouldn’t presume to guess whose palate she took after, but it was exceptionally accustomed to the taste of human flesh, much to his delight.

 

In light of her personal history, Hannibal proposed an elegant solution to dispose of their _meaty_ evidence; one to which he was already well accustomed himself. “These are desperate times, Mr. Graham, and desperate measures are called for,” he observed in the intimacy of his own kitchen, expertly kneading and rolling dough in his confident, capable, brutal hands. “It’s man devouring man, my dear.”

“And who are we to deny it in here?” Will finished for him, mesmerized by the dark blood on his white sleeves.

 

Their victims were hardly predictable. Rich, foreign gentlemen wouldn’t walk downstairs from the Graham’s salon, disappearing instead under its mechanical hidden trapdoor; rude, ill-mannered ladies would inexplicably find their way inside Hannibal’s savoury delicacies, as was their custom even before Will’s arrival.

 

Despite his peculiar combination of mental disorders, his generally hostile attitude, and his apparent predilection for subtle sarcasm, Will intimately appreciated Hannibal’s questionable humour, which instead the vast majority of his acquaintances wouldn’t stomach, with their impeccable manners and filthy little secrets.

Feasting upon the steamed corpse of their victim, Will would politely chew his well-presented serving in respectful silence, before playfully antagonizing him with unsolicited suggestions on spices and seasoning, though never complaining about the main ingredient. His encompassing gaze would peer under Hannibal’s elaborate recipes; his voluptuous tongue would moisten his supple, promising lips.

In the addictive intimacy of their shared mornings, Hannibal would offer his inviting neck to Will’s capable, unstable hands, wondering if his silver blade would slice or shave; Hannibal would rise from his leather chair with the conscious awareness that his valuable trust hadn’t been misplaced, or he wouldn’t at all.

 

“You’re obsessed with Will Graham,” Bedelia dispassionately noticed over her cup of Darjeeling tea, while Hannibal was intent on wrapping her order with ostentatious flair. As the unassuming bell rang her departure from his shop, Hannibal found himself considering her attentive observation; he could frown at her succinct, unflattering wording, but he couldn’t deny its objective validity.

With his precautionary modesty, Hannibal considered a simple flap of a certain butterfly’s wings capable of disturbing the precarious balance in his business, which he was starting to regard as fulfilling, as well as considerably remunerative, and the intriguing relationship he had lingered in cultivating.

 

When Abigail managed to escape from her keeper’s tutelage, with the aid of yet another romantic, easily fooled dreamer, this time of Hannibal’s choosing, Jack came banging on his welcoming door, counting on his reassuring presence and his neutral advice; anticipating Jack’s surprise in front of his former subordinate, Hannibal let Will deal with his expected visit.

 

If Hannibal had learned anything about Will in their months of peaceful coexistence, Will would appreciate that particular meat pie on their table, but his ravishing hunger wouldn’t really be sated.

Hannibal had to get a little creative to assuage his _beautiful_ , unique mind.

 

“You let me think I ate her,” Will ran his rough, calloused palm on Hannibal’s strong jawline, pinning his stubbled throat with his own trusted weapon; Hannibal thought it would suit him more than fine to die at his hands, in the tepid light of the morning sun. “You took her away from Jack, when I was _this close_ to reaching her, and turned Abigail over to an undeserving sailor,” Will described a thin, precise crimson line on his pliant neck, waiting for his due explanation.

“I couldn’t bear any longer to share your undivided attention,” Hannibal admitted, seeking his cold, unforgiving eyes. “As for your concerns about her saviour,” he continued, allowing Will’s insightful gaze to sight the feral creature at the bottom of his own soul, “I doubt he’s still alive.”

 

Under such circumstances, Hannibal would have awaited the kiss of his glistening blade, rather than the soft touch of his lips.

“You’re a bloody wonder.” Will straddled his legs. “Eminently superior,” he continued, frowning at his multiple layers of refined clothes. His razor began its slow descent down towards his navel, parting them in a straight line, “and yet singularly vulnerable.”

Holding tight onto his lean hips, warm under his own eager, shamelessly impatient hands, Hannibal groaned his vehement agreement, “Only to you, my love.”

 

“With an upper lip as marked as yours, it’s particularly difficult to perform an accurate shave,” Will absently confessed, pressing his thumb on Hannibal’s infranasal depression. “I feared nicking you, so I focussed on its form, accommodating my touch to its prominence.” His nonchalant expression gentled, as his lingering thoughts faded into wonder. “I never viewed it as its own sharpness.”

Dipping his cruel digit between Hannibal’s parted lips, getting past his teeth, forging the path for his own hard cock, Will courted with languid strokes the slick, inviting warmth of his tongue. “I always paid unnecessary attention to your mouth.”

Despite his pressing urge to verbally invite Will to continue doing precisely so, Hannibal held his tongue around Will’s throbbing prick and swallowed its considerable length as deeply as he could; while his own nimble fingers found their way to Will’s arched lower back, teasing the meat of his cheeks and the straight line leading to his crevice, Hannibal enjoyed the compelling sight of his lover’s capricious need for dominance.

 

“An insensate beggar snuck into my quarters today,” Will informed him once, nibbling on his rich dinner in the intimate, warm light of one single candle. “We’re probably eating him right now. Don’t worry,” he promptly added, misunderstanding Hannibal’s concerned expression for a snarl of reprimand on his impulsiveness. “He had a reputation of being mentally ill, his sudden disappearance won’t arouse suspicions on us,” Will offered, before resuming his tale.

“ _Evil is here_ , he told me,” Will quoted what Hannibal assumed to be the unfortunate trespasser’s last words, “ _The stink of evil, from below, from him! Oh, he’s the Devil. He’s_ smoke _, sir. Beware him, he with no pity in his heart_.” Hannibal briefly wondered whether Abigail would concur with such a simplistic, uncannily flattering definition of his own person, should he mention its phrasing in their extensive correspondence.

Forking a savoury morsel with an indolent mischief in his sharp eyes, Will concluded, “I couldn’t tell if he was talking about you or me.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This Victorian melodrama tells about an ingenuous barber who’s exiled from London, his hometown, so that a corrupt judge can court his wife. When he comes back, under false pretences, all that remains from his previous life is his empty barber shop and an unbearable sorrow. From his neighbor, he learns that the judge raped his wife, who then poisoned herself, and then adopted his daughter. This proverbially ends in a bloodshed, but the whole internal turmoil converges on the protagonist’s thirst for vengeance.  
> I accommodated events and characters to the original plot so that something _else_ not very nice happened to the person under Will Graham’s guise, but mainly I recognized Hannibal’s manipulative inclination in Mrs. Lovett’s behaviour.


End file.
